A. Field of the Invention
The invention relates generally to alarm clocks, and, more particularly, to alarm clocks having a snooze feature.
B. Description of the Related Art
Alarm clocks are an important device in today""s world. With people getting less and less sleep due to longer work hours, as well as other commitments, the need to be waken up at a particular time in the morning is very important.
As such, alarm clocks are utilized for waking people up, usually by emitting a loud sound, such as a buzzer sound, or by playing music from a selected radio station, at a time that is set by a user. For example, a user can set the alarm clock to go off at 7:00 a.m. At that time, the alarm will go off, and the only way to stop the alarm sound is to either hit a button or other control to cancel the alarm, or else to hit a snooze button to obtain a few more minutes of sleep. With the snooze feature, the alarm sound will stop, but it will begin again at a predetermined time from the hitting of the snooze button. For example, if the snooze button was hit at 7:00 a.m., the alarm would go off at that time, but it would go back on again at 7:07 a.m.
Most alarm clocks allow for multiple snoozes, whereby a person can hit the snooze button several times, each time gaining a few more minutes of sleep.
Typically, the snooze button is on the top surface of the alarm clock, making it readily accessible for a sleepy person to engage, to thereby turn the alarm sound off.
There currently exist several different types of alarm clocks, having different snooze button features. In U.S. Pat. No. 6,009,048 to Raesz, a novelty alarm clock is configured to look like a gambling slot machine, whereby it has a dome light that operates as a snooze push button.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,730,284, an alarm clock is configured to appear like an animal, such as a rooster, whereby the alarm sound emanates from the sounding portion of the animal, such as the beak of the rooster. The alarm sound can be turned off by actuating the sounding portion, such as by pinching shut the beak of the rooster-shaped alarm clock.
The present invention is directed to a different type of structure for a snooze button or snooze control.
The present invention is directed to an alarm clock having a snooze button, wherein the snooze button is configured to have a wing-shape, and wherein the wing-shape is normally situated within an alarm clock housing when an alarm is not actuated, and wherein the wing-shape extends outwards from the alarm clock housing when the alarm is actuated. When the wing-shape is pushed back within the alarm clock housing, the alarm goes off, thereby resulting in a snooze actuation for the alarm clock.